Typical Day for a Harvard undergrad student?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>This may be a somewhat waste of your time, but I just wanted to find out what your typical day in Harvard consists of.</p>

<p>Some things would be particularly helpful,</p>

<li><p>How often you’re taught by TAs, and if so, how good the TAs are. </p></li>
<li><p>How often you’re taught by profs, and good/bad/arrogant ones.</p></li>
<li><p>Do you think people in Harvard (the undergrads) are snobs from strictly your experience? Sure, there may be nice people, but are many snobs?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>No need to pull any punches here, I’m really curious as to what you guys do and what people you meet in that hallowed institution. Granted, most of you are geniuses anyway but I just want to have a sense of what goes on. Think of it as a way to beat the crap out of those Harvard stereotypes coming from bitter Harvard-rejects. =)</p>

2

<p>i'm not an actual harvard student yet, but i went on a visit earlier this fall and i got to sit in on some classes. maybe i can be of some help. i'm sure other people will have better insights but here it goes.
first, i went to a stat class. it was about 50-75 people. taught by a professor. he seemed like a really nice guy and i actually wasn't nearly as lost as i thought i'd be. i'm in apstat and it was kinda a intro stat course, so i understood everything that was going on. i think that class has sections which means 3 days a week you're taught by the professors and 2 days you meet w/ ur TA's in sections to talk about what the professor taught.
then i went to life science. BIG LECTURE. also an entry level course. again, the professor was very personable and made the lesson interesting. he offered if anyone had any questions to stay afterward, so he seemed pretty good to me. definitely not arrogant.
the last class i went to was justice. i've heard it's the biggest class at harvard. something like 800 kids. crazy. much like the life science class except bigger.
i didn't get to meet any of the TA's, but from what i heard they're usually pretty good. the only bad ones are the ones that can't speak english or are too caught up in their graduate work. that might be 1/10.
i didn't meet any snobs. everybody seemed really down to earth and tried to make me feel comfortable. maybe that's cuz i was an athlete though. who knows.
just my two cents.</p>

3

<p>A typical weekday for me when I was an undergrad:</p>

<p>Get up at 9. Linguistics lecture at 10 (~20 students, nice goofy prof), history of science lecture from 11 to 12:30 (~90 students, super nice prof).</p>

<p>Lunch with friends in Lowell House.</p>

<p>2 p.m. Science Core section. 18 students, cool TF doing his paleontology PhD. I fought to get into this section.</p>

<p>3:30-6 Walk back to Leverett House, write email, call dad, take a shower, look at some web sites, do a problem set.</p>

<p>6 dinner in Dunster House with my a cappella group.</p>

<p>7-9:30 Rehearsal</p>

<p>9:30-11 Go out to Uno's with my singing buddies.</p>

<p>11-1 Do homework. Go to bed at 1.</p>

4

<p>I actually responded to this question in the thread "<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/269083-day-life.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/269083-day-life.html&lt;/a&gt;" about a year ago:</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
You wake up in the morning to the sounds of trumpets acknowledging how special you are. As you walk out of your dorm room, you give a quick wave to the common, Non-Harvard people on the way to class, maybe tossing them some loose change or a piece of advice about the SAT IIs.</p>

<p>Your professor reminds you at the beginning of class how fantastic he is, then teaches material that everyone in the classroom finds easy. Everyone scores perfectly on all the tests- that's why they got into Harvard.</p>

<p>After classes, you might run into Bill Gates, Natalie Portman, or Conan O'Brien around the campus- after all, these celebrated alumni have nothing better to do than spend all their time at the school. My roommate says he saw W.E.B. DuBois at Urban Outfitters once, but I think he might be lying.</p>

<p>You hang around with other students in the evening, talking about the things that Harvard students are interested in- differential geometry, Somerset Maugham, postmodern surrealism, computational economics... The only problems with the conversations is that everyone already knows everything, so there isn't much to discuss. Sometimes, therefore, the debates just degrade into games of fox-hunting and discus throwing (after all, everyone who goes to Harvard is both rich and an Olympic athlete).</p>

<p>At the end of the day, just to relax, you might grab your Harvard acceptance letter and head into Boston. After all, a Harvard acceptance letter gets you into any club or party in Boston, lets you buy alcohol in bars whatever age you are, and can be used to get out of speeding tickets and most misdemeanors.</p>

<p>The fact that John Adams went here has an impact on your everyday life, as does the school's age and the size of the its endowment. In particular, having such a large library makes a huge difference! Harvard's 14 million volumes, most of which are held elsewhere in the country or around the world, offers you SO much more than Yale's 9.9 million volumes or Columbia's PATHETIC 6.9 million volumes. Can you imagine having only 7 million books at your school's library? You'd probably run out of things to read by junior year!</p>

<p>At the end of the day, you curl up in your luxurious dorm room that only Harvard could provide, fully appreciating the advantages that Harvard gives you...</p>

<p>The truth? IT'S JUST LIKE ANY OTHER SCHOOL! You have classes, you have homework, you have friends, you go to parties, you eat junk food, you date, you drink, you act irresponsibly every once in a while just to see how it feels. You go to the extracurriculars you like, you take the classes that interest you, and you graduate after four years having hopefully learned something.</p>

<p>Do you really want to know my day? I finished my Physics problem set early this morning before rushing to a Life Sciences lecture, followed by a Physics lecture. I had pretty bad pizza for lunch at the cafe, then did some work before going to Expository Writing in the afternoon. I went home and hung out on the computer before taking a long nap, then woke up to get to my Life Sciences section a little late (sections are once a week and taught by TFs). We did some work in the lab, then I came back to my dorm to do my math homework, talk to the people across the hall, and then visit collegeconfidential before doing my Life Sci problem set. Overall, it was actually a busy day.</p>

<p>Was that really all that enlightening? No! I just went to classes, did some work, and hung out and had some fun. IT'S A SCHOOL! IT'S NOT A METAPHOR ABOUT PERFECTION AND ACHIEVEMENT OR SOMETHING!</p>

<p>Sorry- I'm just tired of the perception that Harvard offers a fundamentally different experience than most other selective colleges. It's absolutely true that you can meet brilliant and wonderful people here, that the classes are usually taught by (in my opinion) great and engaging professors, and that the campus and location are fantastic. However, that doesn't mean it's a fundamentally different kind of college. Harvard's not perfect, and it's not even all that special. So keep a sense of perspective.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>I might have been a bit harsh, but it was meant in fun.</p>

5

<p>I agree with Admiral. My daughter attends, is a soph now. Harvard has some great profs, many interesting students, and a vibrant community. So do the other schools we visited. I don't find Harvard students more super-special than their peers at other highly selective colleges.
I'm happy she is there, but would be just as happy if my younger daughter went to one of the other great schools she is applying to...</p>

6

<p>I'm woken up by the bells of Memorial Church at 8:40 am. I fall back to sleep immediately.</p>

<p>I'm woken up by my alarm at 9:15 am. I take a shower, fool around on the internet for a little while, then go eat breakfast at Annenberg (the freshman dining hall). I have some strawberry yogurt, a banana, a poppy-seed muffin, and some orange juice.</p>

<p>I go to my Math 1b section at 10:00. We work on second order differential equations, and specifically how they would apply to harmonic oscillators. Interesting stuff if math is your thing. Some kids in the class take down some notes and nod their heads to show they understand, while others struggle a bit and ask some questions. My TF is the head TF for the course, so he's an actual professor and wrote the curriculum. The other TF's in other sections teach just fine from what I hear.</p>

<p>I go back to my dorm at 11:00 and check some e-mails and laugh at ridiculous blogs with my roommate.</p>

<p>I go to lunch at Annenberg at 11:30 am (the best time to go because it's not very crowded). I have some chicken, brown rice, a salad, and a brownie.</p>

<p>At noon I head over to my Social Analysis 10: Principles of Economics lecture (better known as Ec 10) at Sanders theater. The lecture is given by Professor Mankiw about income distribution and political theories about income redistribution (utilitarians vs. Rawlsians vs. Libertarians). The class has about 800 people in it, and I'd say 500 of them normally show up to the lectures in Sanders. This class is most commonly taught in sections of about 20 students by a TF. My TF is a former public policy official in the Indian government who is now getting an advanced degree in public policy at the Kennedy School. He has an accent, but I can understand every word he says, and he teaching style is very clear and direct, and he encourages all to go to his office hours.</p>

<p>At 1:00 pm I go back to my room and take a nap. Naps are nice and refreshing. By around 3:00 pm I make my rounds through the hallway checking in on my hallmates to see what they're up to. By 4:00 pm I wake up my other roommate because he sleeps all day. I then work on my math problem set until 5:30 pm. I then fool around until 6:00 then go to dinner with some friends. </p>

<p>At 7:00 I go to my college democrats meeting/secular society meeting/band rehearsal/Forum at the Institute of Politics depending on what night of the week it is.</p>

<p>By 9:00 I'm back in my room working on some reading for my freshman seminar or doing my life sciences lab report or (fill in the blank homework assignment).</p>

<p>At 10:00 I go to brain break in the dining hall and grab some cereal and some hot chocolate.</p>

<p>I then work until about midnight, with periodic (and welcomed) distractions from my hallmates.</p>

<p>At midnight I'll go hang out in various other suites in my hall, maybe play some video games (guitar hero and smash brothers are two common ones).</p>

<p>Sometimes we'll make a trip over to Felipe's for some burritos, but that doesn't happen on a nightly basis.</p>

<p>After some more fooling around on the internet and checking e-mail, I go to bed between 2:00 and 3:00 am. But note that the last several hours were of leisure, not work.</p>

<p>This is an example of a fairly routine day for me, a freshman. I do not claim this to be exactly how everyone else's life goes here, but it's not uncommon.</p>

7

<p>Our classes are either on a M-W-F or Tu-Th schedule for the most part. Classes that meet three times a week have hour-long lectures, and classes that meet twice a week have hour and a half long lectures. </p>

<p>I have 3 classes on M-W-F and one class on Tu-Th. There are problem sets due Wednesday and Thursday, so the two nights before, I'm up pretty late doing work. If there are speeches or interesting presentations around campus, I'll go to those, and on weekends there are usually performances by various student groups. I write for the Crimson on the days I don't have much class, or sometimes when there's an interesting story, and that takes up the whole afternoon, sometimes past dinner.</p>

<p>Classes...I highly recommend the language classes. At least for me, it's a good break from the really quantitative classes I'm taking, and my TF is interesting, engaging, and runs a good course.</p>

<p>Sorry I'm not being terribly specific...</p>

8

<p>That is hilarious!</p>

<p>
[quote]
You wake up in the morning to the sounds of trumpets acknowledging how special you are. As you walk out of your dorm room, you give a quick wave to the common, Non-Harvard people on the way to class, maybe tossing them some loose change or a piece of advice about the SAT IIs.</p>

<p>Your professor reminds you at the beginning of class how fantastic he is, then teaches material that everyone in the classroom finds easy. Everyone scores perfectly on all the tests- that's why they got into Harvard.</p>

<p>After classes, you might run into Bill Gates, Natalie Portman, or Conan O'Brien around the campus- after all, these celebrated alumni have nothing better to do than spend all their time at the school. My roommate says he saw W.E.B. DuBois at Urban Outfitters once, but I think he might be lying.</p>

<p>You hang around with other students in the evening, talking about the things that Harvard students are interested in- differential geometry, Somerset Maugham, postmodern surrealism, computational economics... The only problems with the conversations is that everyone already knows everything, so there isn't much to discuss. Sometimes, therefore, the debates just degrade into games of fox-hunting and discus throwing (after all, everyone who goes to Harvard is both rich and an Olympic athlete).</p>

<p>At the end of the day, just to relax, you might grab your Harvard acceptance letter and head into Boston. After all, a Harvard acceptance letter gets you into any club or party in Boston, lets you buy alcohol in bars whatever age you are, and can be used to get out of speeding tickets and most misdemeanors.</p>

<p>The fact that John Adams went here has an impact on your everyday life, as does the school's age and the size of the its endowment. In particular, having such a large library makes a huge difference! Harvard's 14 million volumes, most of which are held elsewhere in the country or around the world, offers you SO much more than Yale's 9.9 million volumes or Columbia's PATHETIC 6.9 million volumes. Can you imagine having only 7 million books at your school's library? You'd probably run out of things to read by junior year!</p>

<p>At the end of the day, you curl up in your luxurious dorm room that only Harvard could provide, fully appreciating the advantages that Harvard gives you...

[/quote]
</p>